If your Fire TV Stick is showing the wrong time, you won’t be able to watch live TV programmes. You may also experience difficulty connecting to the internet and receive error messages. This issue is most common on the 4K Fire TV Stick.
This can be confusing and frustrating, but fortunately there are up to 7 ways to fix it. In this tutorial, I will show you how to correct the time on your Fire TV Stick.
What causes a Fire TV Stick to show the wrong time?
There are several reasons why your Fire TV Stick might be displaying the wrong time:
- Using VPN Apps
- Region Setting
- ZIP Code Format
- Amazon Account Registration
- Wi-Fi Connection
- Soft Reset Needed
- Factory Reset Required
I will go through each of these causes and steps to fix in more detail below.
7 methods to fix the time on your Fire TV Stick
If your Fire TV Stick is displaying the wrong time, there are a few things you can do to fix it:
Disable VPN
If you are using a VPN app, this can interfere with the time zone settings on your Fire TV Stick. To fix this, disable the VPN app and from the home screen, go to Settings menu, Preferences, Time Zones and change your time zone.
Next, restart your Fire TV Stick. Head back to the time zone settings and the date & time should now be corrected. Afterwards, re-enable your VPN app.
Change Region Setting
If you have recently travelled with your Fire TV Stick to a new country or region, you may need to update the region time settings.
At the home screen, go to Settings, Preferences and select Time Zone. Choose the correct region and time setting from the options listed.
If you’re unsure of the time zone for your region, view a list of world time zones.
Update ZIP Code Format
Some users have reported changing their ZIP code to the five digit format has corrected the date & time shown on their Fire TV Stick.
This can be done by going to Settings, Preferences and selecting Location. Enter a 5 digit ZIP code and click Next.
De-Register Amazon Account
If you are still experiencing issues with the time zone after completing the steps above, de-registering your Fire TV Stick from your Amazon account can fix the problem.
Top Tip Before you begin, make sure you know your Amazon account login information as you will need to re-register your device after completing this step.
Go ahead and tap Settings on your Fire TV Stick remote. From there you will be able select Account & Profile Settings and finally, Deregister.
Once you have re-registered your Fire TV Stick and after restarting it, the date & time may still be wrong but don’t worry, one more restart is required.
Reconnect Wi-Fi
Another simple fix is to reconnect your Fire TV Stick to the internet. This works best if you are able to connect to a different Wi-Fi network e.g. mobile hotspot first and then reconnect to your home Wi-Fi network.
First, go to Settings and then select Network. Scroll to Join Other Network, select your mobile hotspot network and enter the password. Now, return to the home screen and restart your Fire TV Stick.
Once it has restarted, connect back to your home Wi-Fi network. Check the time zone settings again and the date & time should now be updated.
Soft Reset
A quick & easy fix for this issue is to soft rest your Fire TV Stick. After completing the soft reset process, your device’s cache & memory will be cleared and rebooted.
Factory Reset
If you have tried all of the troubleshooting steps above and you are still seeing the wrong time, it’s likely a factory reset is required. This will return your Fire TV Stick back to its original settings.
Once your Fire TV Stick has reset, go through the initial setup process and check your time zone settings.
Summary
If your Fire TV Stick is displaying the wrong time, you can disable VPN, change the region setting, update the ZIP code format, de-register your Amazon account or reconnect your Wi-Fi. If those don’t work, you can try a soft reset or a factory reset.
All these methods should help you fix the problem of the wrong time showing on your Fire TV Stick. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below and we will try to help you.
